


Fly

by ehre_wahrheit



Category: Finder no Hyouteki | Finder Series, Haikyuu!!
Genre: Aged-up Haikyuu Characters, Based on True Stories, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Domesticity, Multi, Stupidity, also, asami is actually human in this work, by multi-fandom like i mean there are 3 other fandoms that might show up, don't tell my mom, i don't know how to tag, kirishima has 13 siblings whoa, long sufferance, might possibly become multi-fandom crossover, pak ganern, patawad inay
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-11
Updated: 2016-08-13
Packaged: 2018-07-23 00:45:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7460031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ehre_wahrheit/pseuds/ehre_wahrheit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five years since they first met, Akihito begins to think that maybe things are finally settling down between him and Ryuichi Asami. He couldn’t be more wrong.</p><p>Or</p><p>In which there’s a child, a hospital, suffering interns, and—possibly—human trafficking. Aki just wants to take care of the baby. In true Takaba-and-life fashion, the universe doesn’t let him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> okay so this started as crack work with me thinking "what if asami found a kid on his doorstep" and i was trying to draw suga at the same time and thus the suga & asami friendship was born in my heart
> 
> this is set in both haikyuu (past) and finder (present) 'verses. i would like to put this disclaimer early on that i have yet to read hq after chapter 12. no prior knowledge of hq is needed for this work, although you must have been able to read finder up until at least bali (post-hong kong. i h/c that the island was in bali lol)
> 
> i don't know how far this is going to go, i hope it makes sense at the end of it. warnings for shifting povs, grammatical errors, and unedited formatting.
> 
> also, my tenses are v confusing (i am also v confused) but i tried to write everything (flashbacks included) in present tense. trying out a new writing style.
> 
> also heh, this got away from me. it's so long. good luck, i hope your iq does not drop after reading this

AKA Asami doesn’t want the baby (jk he does)

 

The funny thing is, it had been Asami’s idea to go out for “anniversary dinner” that night. When Akihito had looked at the calendar, the date had looked unfamiliar. As he was dressing up, he thought that that was it—Ryuichi Asami had finally fucked up, shown a crack, shown that he was human and made mistake.

“It’s the day you finally confessed you were in love with me,” Asami says, when they’re seated at a posh restaurant and Akihito had told him maybe he mixed up their anniversary with an ex’s.

Akihito blinks, blushes, and buries his face into his hands. “ _God_ , and you decide that’s our anniversary?”

Asami smirks. “It’s the best date for it, don’t you think?”

Akihito doesn’t answer, and he doesn’t have to, because they’re both deliciously distracted by the food.

But deep inside him, he decides, _yeah, it is._

**..--..**

Akihito is tipsy when Kirishima drops them off at the condo, playfully leaning into Asami’s space as they walk the short distance from the car to the lobby. Asami indulges him, wrapping a warm, warm arm around Akihito. It makes him easily forgive the fact that Asami had teased him about liking cocktails more than straight hard liquor on the rocks.

He has delicate tastes, okay.

The concierge—Akihito doesn’t really know what he is, so he continues calling him a concierge—looks utterly _relieved_ when they finally arrive, even going as far as leaving his marble desk to rush to them, shaking and gesturing wildly but not talking at all.

Akihito stares at him and almost wants to laugh until the man breathes deep and says, “Mr. Asami! Someone left you a—uh, a _gift_.” The man looks uncomfortable, and Akihito feels Asami tense from where he’s still pressed against the man. He immediately pulls away from Akihito, pushing him behind his larger body.

“Where is it?” Asami asks, voice low and tone harsh. “ _What_ is it?”

“Uh—” the man begins, and he licks his lips.

Asami, the impatient king as always, growls low in his throat and the man squeaks.

“I think it’s better for you to judge for yourself, sir!”

He moves toward his desk, where a small, black bag rests—he goes near it, and something from inside moves. Akihito, the same curious cat as always, moves towards it immediately, only to have Asami grab his shoulder.

 _“What are you doing?”_ he hisses, and Akihito shrugs.

“I wanna see the gift too, you know. It’s unfair that you always get the things.”

Asami’s face darkens. “It could be dangerous.”

Akihito rolls his eyes and shrugs his hand off, moving fast before Asami could stop him again. He looks at the concierge’s concerned and pale face—sees how badly he’s sweating, sees how his eyes fly from the package to Asami at Akihito and back again.

His heart skips a beat when he hears something, something he doesn’t want to believe he just heard. He walks forward faster, pulls the package toward him, and he stops breathing.

**..--..**

Only figuratively, of course.

"I take it this note means he isn't yours?"

"Yes, Akihito, that's what it means. No, Akihito, the child isn't mine."

Akihito looks at the small child quietly sleeping in his arms. When he saw what was inside the package, he had immediately scooped the small infant into his arms—letting the fussing little thing get used to getting carried and ignoring Asami’s exasperated tone when he says his name. "Does the note say what his name is?"

"No, it just says he's safer with me."

When Asami finally let Akihito read the note, all he saw was, _He’s a good child. He’s yours now. He’ll be safer with you. Please take care of him. R_

"Oh, alright. I guess we can name you."

"What?"

"What name can we give him? Daiki. He seems like he's going to be a big helper."

"Akihito—" Asami begins, but Akihito doesn't hear him.

"Or Shinji. I don't think anyone would remember Evangelion in ten, fifteen years. What do you think?" He finally looks up to Asami, finding a confused, almost disgusted expression on his handsome face.

"Why do you care?" he finally asks. "It's just an infant. This isn't a charity house."

Akihito blinks, and then says, "You know, for the genius who owns all of Tokyo, you can be completely stupid sometimes."

Asami's eyes narrow, incensed. "I do not appreciate your tone, Akihito—"

"I want him."

Shocked silence. "What?"

"I want him, Asami, and I'm keeping him." He shrugs at the almost helpless look on Asami's face. "I want him, Asami," he says again.

"You want a _child_?" Asami asks. He runs a hand through his hair. It's probably the most flustered Akihito has ever seen him.

Akihito smiles, taking pity on the man. He readjusts his hold on the infant. "It may not be obvious, with my track record of putting myself in dangerous situations, but I do have dreams for the future, you know. Just like any man, maybe. Get married, settle down, have kids." He looks at the serene, sleeping child in his arms. "Once, I thought it'd never come true. Damn it, Asami, I'm still with you. That in itself is dangerous enough. Bring in kids? Who's to say they're going to have a future?"

"Your job is dangerous, too," Asami points out, and Akihito snorts.

"I know. It's not a job you can raise a family on. I wasn't planning on keeping at it forever. Maybe only until I've a name for myself, and then I'll work somewhere more sustainable." He doesn't fight the urge to press his mouth against the child's head, his nose brushing against fine hair.

Asami stays silent. Akihito doesn't try to fill the silence. He knows it's not fair, but he crushes those thoughts and tells himself he deserves this. At least after all the shit Asami put him through all these years, he can have something to show from it aside from bruises and psychological trauma.

Asami clears his throat, and Akihito is surprised to see his eyes shining with something aside from anger or condescencion when their eyes meet. He stays silent as Asami searches his face—probably looking for a weakness, a vulnerability. But not this time.

Children does that to people, Akihito guesses. Well, to most people. Asami obviously doesn't want it.

"It's not even yours. Nor mine," Asami says.

" _He_ , Asami," Akihito corrects. "Maybe accepting that he's a human being will make this easier."

"I have no such reservations about human lives, Akihito. I thought you knew that."

Akihito breathes. Yes, he knows that. And that's why he's doing this. He's probably the only way he can pigeonhole Asami into anything, although Asami is still strong enough, smart enough to be able to manipulate the situation into turning it toward his favor.

But not this time.

"I have relatives in Europe," Akihito begins. "I work in criminal journalism, Asami, I know people who can give me false papers that would pass as real even with the best customs officers checking them." He takes a breath against the torrent of pain that assaults his senses, making him feel almost dizzy. "I know he's not mine. I know he's not yours, either, but I can't help but feel that he is, for some reason. I'll take care of him. I can be safe, even without you." _Although I'd rather we do this together._

"You'll leave me for him," Asami says. He sounds almost amazed. "You're really going to leave me, aren't you."

Akihito winces, but he forges on. "Yes," he whispers. He closes his eyes when Asami flinches at his tone.

There's a beat of silence again, except this time when it ends Asami straightens up, air regal and he's back to his usual self and Akihito knows that he had made up his mind.

But so has he.

He presses his face against the child's head again, willing himself not to cry. _He_ had chosen this. _He_ had made this decision. He doesn't get to cry. Maybe later, when he's alone.

Or maybe not at all. Maybe he can just forget the past four years, act like nothing had happened to him.

But that's a lie. He can pretend all his life, but he will never _forget_. He can never, however he tries.

"Akihito," Asami says, and he thinks, _this is it_. "Akihito. Look at me."

His tone brokers no arguments, but he thinks that if he looks up, he's going to start crying.

"Akihito," Asami growls, and Akihito's self-preservation instinct kicks in enough for him to look at Asami. The man sighs, long-suffering and exhausted. "You'll hvave to help me," he says. "I've never been around children before. I find them grating on my nerves within the first five minutes. We have to make sure he's not carrying some parasite, either. And—Akihito? Are you listening to me?"

He is. He is, and he feels like the world just smiled down on him, for the first time in his life. He grins and bounds forward, crashing into Asami's chest and still moving forward but he knows, he knows Asami isn't going to let them fall. He squeezes the boy between their bodies, letting Asami reach around to hold him.

And by _god_ , he doesn't ever want to leave.

**..--..**

Half an hour later, Akihito is still laughing because, apparently, when Asami says “you have to help me”, he means you have to start from the very basics.

**..--..**

“You can’t hold him like _that_ , Asami,” Akihito says for the umpteenth time, still snorting. The boy had since woken up, his face showing contempt and distaste at the situation, but he doesn’t cry. The note didn’t lie—the boy is indeed a very good boy. He adjusts one of Asami’s arms so that his hand is supporting the boy’s bum. “You have to make sure his back, neck, and but is supported.” He moves Asami’s other elbow and the boy nuzzles into Asami’s chest.

Akihito freezes, and then coos.

“Holy shit,” he says, “that is cutest fucking thing I have ever seen.”

“Language, Akihito,” Asami says dryly. “My arms are getting tired.”

“Then you do this—” he moves the boy, who grunts as he is readjusted until he’s sitting on one of Asami’s arm, half of his body slung over a wide shoulder. “Then put your hand against his neck to make sure it doesn’t loll around.”

Asami follows his instruction and he coos again. “No, I swear. This is the cutest thing ever. Ryuichi Asami, Japan’s most eligible bachelor, holding an infant.” An idea pops into his head. “Hey, Asami—”

“No.”

Akihito groans. “Oh, come on. I haven’t asked yet!”

“No, Akihito, you can’t take a picture of me holding the child, just so you can sell it to some magazine that’ll probably give you enough loyalties to set you up for life for the next ten years.”

“Please?”

“No. And why can’t you just call me by my name?”

“I do?”

“I mean my first name. Save that for when we’re getting married.”

“We’re getting married?”

Asami rolls his eyes. “Akihito.”

“Asami.”

Asami sends him a Look.

He sighs. “I’ll have to get used to it, okay? The same way I had to get used to your people calling me ‘Takaba-san’ or ‘Takaba-sama’. That’s weird shit, okay?”

“We’re planning to raise a child together,” Asami says, slow and steady, “but you can’t say my first name?”

Akihito groans again, and decides, fuck it. He’s been calling the man by his first name in his head for years, anyway—why not practice it in real life? Besides, Ryuichi had a point. They’ll be raising a child. He doesn’t point out that he starts calling him “child” and not “it”. He doesn’t think it’s conducive.

“On one condition, then,” he says. He waits until Ryuichi is looking at him before he continues. “You choose his name.”

Ryuichi stares at him and then sighs. “Can’t we just name him Ichi or something? Or—oh, wait, we can’t name him that.” He frowns for a second, before something seems to hit him and he grins. “Seijūrō,” he says, decided. “Hey there, little one.”

Akihito stares. “Why do I feel like you just owned someone?”

Ryuichi shrugs. “It’s in your imagination, Akihito. Also a deal is a deal.”

“You know what having a kid means, Ryuichi?” he says, easy as a breeze. “It means you can’t coerce me into sex anytime you want.”

Ryuichi’s grin turns feral. “I have my secretary on speed dial, kitten, and he happens to be _very_ good with kids. He has thirteen younger siblings, the youngest one only four.”

“Kirishima has thirteen siblings?!” Akihito yelps, imagining just how noisy that would be. And how warm.

“Yes, he does. Also, I think he just drooled on me. That’s disgusting.”

Akihito looks at the picture Ryuichi makes—over six feet tall, looking disgusted as a tiny child drools on his branded suit. And he laughs. He laughs and he laughs and he laughs.

**..--..**

Very contrary to his first protests, once Ryuichi gets used to holding Seijūrō, he is unwilling to relinquish that hold—even if it’s to Akihito, who wants to check his diaper. He holds the child gently and tenderly, bouncing him to keep him entertained as he stands by the window to talk to Kirishima—probably to do something about making sure the kid doesn’t have a parasite or something—and Akihito can’t help but fall in love with the man all over again.

He wishes he can fantasize even longer, but having a child means having to have _things_ for a child, and he’s about to call for Ryuichi’s attention when he turns to Akihito, a frown marring his face. “Can you write all of that down? Oh, oh—yeah, sure, we’d appreciate that. Hmm,” he says into the phone, gesturing at Akihito to put on a coat. “We’ll be down in a few minutes. Yes, we’ll see you. Thank you, Kei. You can have tomorrow off. I’ll have Suoh drive us to the hospital and back.” He smiles, wryly. “Yeah, just call him up. Tell him I got there first.” He listens for a second, still bouncing Seijūrō as he tries to reach for the phone on the other side of Ryuichi’s neck from him. “Well, he will, but I think I can fight back. Yeah, thanks. See you.”

He hangs up, pulls his neck back from Seijūrō, before he scowls at the child.

“Stop that,” he says. Seijūrō answers by swatting at his face. Ryuichi looks at Akihito, finding him already wearing a jacket. “Okay, good. Kirishima’s downstairs. We have a lot of shopping to do, apparently. He’s gonna give us his little sister’s old clothes for now.”

Akihito smirks. “Not scared of letting your son wear girl’s clothes?” he asks.

Ryuichi rolls his eyes as he leads them to the door. In the five years they’ve been together, this is perhaps the most carefree he has ever seen his lover. It’s an amazing sight. “He can be whatever he wants, just not something that cries in the middle of the night. Please.”

Akihito delights in the fact that Ryuichi doesn’t deny Seijūrō’s paternity. “Also, why is he ‘Kei’ in private and ‘Kirishima’ in front of me?”

“He’s Kei in private and Kirishima at work, Akihito.”

“So if I ask him to baby sit I can call him Kei?”

“Yeah.” Seijūrō looks up at the sound the elevator makes when it arrives, finally awake to experience his first ride. “Be careful, though. He has the tendency of nagging at people who call him ‘Kei’ in private.” Seijūrō wiggles around in discomfort brought about by the elevator, but he still doesn’t cry. Akihito reaches up on his toes to kiss the boy’s cheek.

“Think he can give us pointers on what to buy for Sei, then?”

“Sei?”

“Seijūrō’s too long!” Akihito complains. “And Sei is cute, no?”

Ryuichi doesn’t answer. “He threatened to tell on me if I don’t let him come with me shopping.”

Akihito laughs as they leave the building, nodding at the concierge as they pass. That poor man needs a raise. They find Kirishima near the car when they get there, and he immediately takes Seijūrō from Ryuichi’s arms. Akihito thinks it’s telling how strong their friendship is that Ryuichi doesn’t even tense up as he relinquishes the boy.

“Tell who?” Akihito asks, once they’re in the car and it’s finally his turn to hold Seijūrō. “About what?”

“A lot of things,” Ryuichi says vaguely.

Seijūrō starts fussing for attention, though, and Akihito is more than happy to let go of the conversation to concentrate on the baby.

**..--..**

Kei Kirishima, it turns out, is just as thorough as Kei as he is as Kirishima. Ryuichi leaves the decisions to him and Akihito, more than happy to just grab and drop into the basket whatever catches Seijūrō’s fancy at the toys section. Akihito feels like they’ll be dealing with a sea of toys by the time they’re done shopping.

“This one has the least alcohol content, although it says it’s all natural,” Kei is saying, holding a bag of baby wipes. “Don’t believe it when they claim it doesn’t have alcohol. It has to, or else they won’t be wet wipes.” He grabs another one, although they’re the same brand. “This one has aloe, so it’s soothing to the skin. It’s best to have this on hand, especially if you’re trying new products. They might cause him to have reactions and this is the only thing that won’t hurt him.”

Akihito nods along, grabbing anything and everything Kei gives him and memorizing the brands. He absorbs whatever information he gets from Kei, knowing he’s going to be his best source of information when it comes to these things.

“When I checked what he was wearing, he was wearing these,” he says, holding a bag of diapers in blue wrapper. “These are expensive, but they don’t lie when they say they have the best absorbency. They also have indicators that change color when it’s time to change diapers.”

“Smart diapers,” Akihito mutters.

“Asami-sama’s research arm owns the patent to this techonology.”

Akihito looks up at Kei, who nods his head and moves from the topic real quick.

Seijūrō will either have the best, or the worst, future. He doesn’t know which one he’d prefer.

**..--..**

The almost has not enough space to fit in all the things they bought, plus the boxes of clothes and old toys that Kei had brought to give them. The trunk, front seat, and backseat were all stuffed with boxes and plastic bags, with Akihito having to sit on Asami’s lap with Seijūrō in his arms just so none of them gets left behind. And this is a luxury car.

**..--..**

It takes two trips and three helpers provided by the building to get everything up to the condo and in order. Kei stays with them, teaching them both how to prepare milk properly—both on the spot and for storage, just in case they need it. He tells them the importance of having milk ready for popping into the microwave for midnight snacks. He also shows them how to test for the milk temperature, and at what temperature it must be at before giving it to Seijūrō.

The boy conks out halfway through his bottle.

He shows them how to properly wash the bottles and toys, too—“just because it says dishwasher safe doesn’t mean you should wash it in the dishwasher. You have to make sure it’s clean, before you put it in there. It helps to be extra careful when it’s children you’re talking about.”

By the end of it all, Akihito falls asleep curled on one of the armchairs, Seijūrō gets to sleep on top of Kei, who takes the couch, and Ryuichi passes out on the dining table.

**..--..**

Kei wakes Akihito up at exactly seven in the morning, telling him he has to leave and that they better be ready for Seijūrō’s check-up at the hospital at eleven later that morning. Akihito takes his son, pops one of the bottles they prepared last night into the microwave, and shakes Ryuichi awake.

“Wake. Up,” he groans. “What do you want for breakfast? Ryuuuuuuuu.”

Ryuichi doesn’t make a noise. He simply straightens up, and he looks at Akihito and Akihito just wants to kick him. He looks fresh as a daisy even just having woken up. He sits up and kisses Akihito before kissing Seijūrō, too. The boy grunts and presses his face against Akihito’s neck. “Fruits and yoghurt, please. Where’s Kei?”

“Said he needed to go home,” Akihito says through a yawn. The microwave beeps. “Can you feed Sei, please? I’ll make breakfast real quick. And I’m making pancakes. You need more carbohydrates for the morning.”

Ryuichi grunts and takes Sei from Akihito without further protest. He leaves the dining room and disappears into the kitchen, only to reappear with a bottle in one hand. He walks to the living room. Akihito busies himself with getting coffee ready, and he can’t help but feel like this must be what domestic bliss like.

He doesn’t really mind. As a matter of fact, he wants _more_.

**..--..**

The hospital they take Seijūrō to is large and looks more like a hotel than a hospital. There are people that Akihito knows—celebrities, politicians, athletes—and Ryuichi moves about like the owns the place until they’re at the main administrative wing. He barges into an office’s waiting room and they find only two people there: an actor, Akihito knows, Tōru Oikawa, who grins at Ryuichi and then winks before he stands up and begins to leave.

“Oh I want to be here,” he says at the door, “but I feel like Suga-chan can chew you up enough for the day. I’ll have you next time. Bye, Suga-chan!”

“Bye, Tōru-chan,” Suga-chan says, and Akihito finds his tone soothing. He’s wearing a white coat over a button-up and khaki pants, a sight that had Akihito tensing immediately, but that tone soothes him. “As for _you_ ,” he says, and Akihito tenses again because, uh-oh. That tone usually means you’re in trouble. “I’ll call for someone. Office?”

“Aki?” Ryuichi says, and Akihito is so startled by the sudden nickname that he shakes his head.

“Uh, no, I’ll stay out here. How long is it gonna take?” he asks.

“Not too long, we hope. It depends on what we find in the first fifteen minutes,” Suga-chan answers again. “I’m Doctor Koushi Sugawara, Director of Medicine here at Karasu Medical Center. You can call me Suga.”

“Uh—Akihito Takaba, criminal photojournalist. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“You, too, Takaba-san. Please wait here a moment, then. Asami-san?”

Akihito ignores the fact that he knows Ryuichi and waves him off as he sits down on one of the couches. Sugawara is a very beautiful man—fine to Ryuichi’s rugged handsomeness. They seem to be of the same age, too—that is to say, undefinable unless asked. Which Akihito is not going to, because that would be rude.

Instead he settles into the couch, grabbing a magazine—National Geographic!—and readies himself for the next few minutes, or hours, until he finds out whatever it is there is to find out about the boy now sitting with his father in the doctor’s office.


	2. Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> aka koushi is kween, asami is a sap, and i just really love the Everyone Is In Love With Shimizu trope

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aight there will be a lot of ships in this work (and a lot of weird ones too) so i hope ya'll still like it

When Ryuichi is only thirteen, he meets the two people who will one day become his closest friends for the first time.

He wasn't living the luxurious life in Tokyo then—just a simple, quiet orphan boy in Miyagi, one of many who got lost in the system two years after his parents were killed.

The government was lenient on him. They always were, to kids like him—to kids who lost their place in their world because of war, because the law couldn't protect them. But Ryuichi didn't want to put in the effort to be wanted. From a young age, he had assumed a 'want me or you don't' attitude—an attitude that he had carried into adulthood, until it became distorted and became 'want me or want me'.

(People usually did.)

He had always been a lone wolf. It doesn't mean he can't work with a group, oh no—he had leadership skills unlike the orphanage has ever seen before, and so they were willing to fund his education and send him off to Tokyo to continue his education. He doesn't know why he chose a public school in Miyagi. He can work with groups, but he prefers not to. He knows that the only way you can make sure things go right is to do it yourself.

He's walking by a park when it happens.

 

**..--..**

 

He hears it before he sees it—people had been yelling, laughing, having fun in general.

"Your receives are still off!" he hears someone yell breathlessly, before the same voice calls out, "Hey!! Shit, look out!!"

It's only then that Ryuichi looks towards the park.

He finds a ball flying for his face.

 

**..--..**

 

He doesn't see the silver haired boy trying to save the ball until after he's on his back, staring at the blue sky, with no idea how he got there. His hand is outstretched, and there's a throbbing pain on his nose. He feels something sliding down his face.

Suddenly, he's not looking at the sky but at two boys his age—one of them, a pretty boy with silver hair and a beauty mark; the other a fierce looking boy who looked a bit guilty.

"Your nose is bleeding!" the silver haired boy screams, before he punches the other boy on the shoulder. "Daichi, what the hell are you still doing here? Grab a tissue, or an icepack—anything!"

"Oh, crap—wait—"

And then Ryuichi is suddenly alone with the pretty boy again. His face is still hurting, and his hand is still in the air, so he lets it drop. "Does it hurt anywhere else? How hard did you hit your head? Are you—"

"Suga!" a third voice calls out, "Suga, is he okay? I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have hit it so close to the net, I _knew_ Daichi was going to try to—"

"Asahi, shut up," the boy—Suga, Ryuichi thinks, what a perfect name for such a sweet guy—says, "it's not your fault. Can you call Shimizu? Tell her we need more ice."

There's the sound of shuffling. Ryuichi reaches up to his throbbing face, and pulls his hand away when he feels something wet and sticky. It comes off red.

Suga seems to flinch. "God, I'm so sorry. What's your name? I'm Koushi Sugawara. You can call me Suga. There's—oh, thank god. Thanks, Dai."

"Uh, sure," the one called Daichi says.

"What's your name?" Suga asks, as he pressed a cloth against Ryuichi's face. He hisses at the pain, but also sighs in relief two seconds later.

"Asami," he says. "My name's Ryuichi Asami."

"Oh, uh, I'm Daichi Sawamura," Daichi says. "You can't really see him, but there's a giant hobo hovering over my shoulder." Daichi grins at the insulted "hey" that comes from his introduction. “His name's Azumane Asahi. I'm really sorry for this."

"What were you playing?" Ryuichi asks, not really sure why. Maybe he hit his head harder than he thought. "There was a lot of yelling, and… that ball flew real fast."

Suga laughs. "Volleyball," he answers. "It's a dangerous game if you don't pay attention."

"Does that happen a lot? People getting hit on the face, I mean."

This time, all three of them laugh together. "More often than you would think," Daichi answers, shaking his head. "When we started playing, we had to guard our heads with our hands when it was Asahi's turn to serve. Usually you'd find the ball flying for your face than over the net."

"Remember that one time we had a practice game against that Tokyo powerhouse?" Suga asks. "Their wingspiker hit through our block, but you were there, except you stepped too close and received with your face instead!"

Ryuichi snorts, which turns out to be a bad idea because blood flies out of his nose.

"I'm gonna be sick," Asahi says faintly, while Daichi busies himself with helping Ryuichi clean himself up. They both help him sit up, with Suga keeping the makeshift icebag to his forehead as more blood flows down his nose.

"You didn't break my nose, did you?" he asks.

Daichi leans forward to study his face, and then shakes his head. "Nope, it's still straight as a fucking arrow. Also, Asahi, you're going to fail your EMT certification if you faint at the sight of a bleeding nose."

"Yeah, Asahi, you see worse things in the back of the ambulance."

Ryuichi looks up sharply at the sound of the newest voice—a decision that he regrets almost immediately when throbbing pain hits him—but he forgets about that immediately.

**..--..**

At the tender, naive, hormonal age of thirteen, Kiyoko Shimizu is the most beautiful girl Ryuichi has ever seen. That assessment carries on as they grew older—as they entered high school, as he cheered them into their first national championship, as he watches Daichi speak his final captain speech before they graduate high school. It carries until they all get their college degrees, until he begins his journey to the underworld, as he slowly becomes the most powerful man in all of Tokyo.

Kiyoko Shimizu holds the title of "Most Beautiful Woman" in Ryuichi Asami's life even as he dates and beds countless supermodels and actresses.

Kiyoko Shimizu, by far and wide, is the most beautiful human being Ryuichi has ever known.

(He never really tells Suga, who thinks that Ryuichi's drunken confession when they were sixteen that he finds Suga pretty is also his confession that he thinks Suga is the prettiest person in the world.

Well, maybe saying to his face that "you're the prettiest person I have ever, ever seen" can lead to that misunderstanding. He doesn't tell Suga's friend, the actor Tooru Oikawa, either. He claims he's the prettiest man on Earth, and Ryuichi never corrects him. Secretly, he thinks Suga's prettier—or that boy Kageyama. Akihito, of course, wins "Prettiest Boy" the moment he enters Ryuichi's life, but really, no one has to know that.

Especially not under threat of possible medically-induced death if the people in question found out.)

**..--..**

Ryuichi quickly finds out that Shimizu is indeed beautiful, inside and out. She doesn't have the cutting brutality that Suga sometimes lets slip when he loses his temper, but she's just as pretty. Maybe even prettier.

She doesn't have Daichi's short fuse, although they are both firm leaders who express concern very clearly.

She doesn't have Asahi's accidental slips into intimidating posturing, although they're both gentle and coaxing.

No, she's all sweet and honest and soft and, if Ryuichi had a mother, maybe she'd act like Shimizu does. It's another secret that he keeps from Suga, who adopts people his age—and older—and claims to be their mother. Shimizu does not hen people, the way Suga does when he's stressing out—she stays the quiet, protective, concerned friend.

**..--..**

He meets all four of them and finds out they all go to the same junior high. Although he's in Asahi's class, he finds himself hanging out with Suga and Daichi more often than the other two. He joins them when they stay in school for volleyball practice. He even learns how to block, but he never joins the club. He introduces them to the orphanage's headmaster and Suga's and Daichi's parents start to join the orphanage's many charity events. He sleeps over their houses on weekends, they all cram their studies together, and they enter and leave high school together.

He sometimes finds himself anxious of the fact that the three of them might separate one day, except Daichi finally finds the courage to ask Suga out when they're college freshmen and enjoying their first Christmas in Tokyo and they decide that Ryuichi will always be their first born. 'Ryuichi Asami Sugawara-Sawamura. If we ever get a divorce, you're keeping all your names.'

**..--..**

Suga shows the most opposition when, on his eighteenth birthday, he receives a package addressed to him from his dead father. It was dated exactly eighteen years ago.

It's the day Ryuichi decides he'll continue as he had always been fated to do, and for the first time since they met, he makes Sugawara cry.

It was, and has since been, the biggest fight they had ever had. Daichi, in true fatherhood, said he wanted Ryuichi to do whatever he thought was best, but to make sure he was safe and that he would be happy.

It was the fight that made Ryuichi decide that, for all intents and purposes, Suga has become his mother. He had cried and said no, told Ryuichi that there had to be other ways to use the fate that his father had bestowed upon him. Suga even tells him he loves him.

It's the first time in his life he is told he is loved, and it's the first time he cries in front of his 'parents'.

They drift apart of a few months, Daichi being their only tether to each other, but they get closer together again. He is there when Suga and Daichi graduate college, when they get their first house, when they get their first dog.

He's there for them when Shimizu gives birth to their firstborn child, a sunny little boy they decide to call "Tatsuya", _after our real firstborn, of course_ , and he's there when Daichi meets his accident.

He never leaves them again. Not really.

**..--..**

Suga, of course, opposes the idea of Ryuichi investing in a medical practice that he isn't even sure will flourish—even if it's his own.

"We're both just starting, you and I," he argues, very logically. "If this blows, you're going to lose so much money. All I lose is a clinic."

"It's not going to blow," Ryuichi says, confident even back then.

**..--..**

He's right, and the practice flourishes. Daichi works hard, and all three of them put up a hospital. Asahi gets his EMT certification, Shimizu finishes her nursing degree, and Daichi finally heals and becomes the hospital's CEO.

Suga gives Ryuichi ownership of the hospital as a gift for his twenty-ninth birthday, and no one argues.

**..--..**

He stares at Suga, not knowing why he can't just gather the same emotions for the man as he does for any other man who crosses him. Suga looks amused—he probably is. He just one-upped Tokyo's—Japan's!—most powerful man.

"Interns," he says again.

Suga nods. "Interns."

"Interns."

"Interns."

Just a few seconds ago, an unfamiliar teenaged girl had taken Seijūrō from his arms, smiling at him and telling him they'll take care of the boy, before walking out of the office as if it's every day that he sees someone walk through the doors and into her boss's office without security trying to apprehend him.

When he had asked, all Suga did was shrug and say, "we have interns."

"Why do you have interns?" Asami finally asks. He doesn't know what to do with his arms now, only twelve hours after finally finding out how to properly hold his child. Seijūrō, he corrects himself. How to properly hold Seijūrō.

"They're exchange scholars from the Philippines, Germany, and Thailand. They're all from Tokyo U!" he says, proud. "The admin knows I have a hospital, so they talked to me. Apparently they misnumbered their seniors. Their undergrads had no other hospitals to go to for internship."

"And you agreed?" He crosses his arms. The action feels awkward now. He itches or a smoke, but Suga and Daichi both enforce a no smoking rule in their home and workplace, and Ryuichi has gotten punched by Suga one too many times. He has been properly conditioned, thanks.

"They signed an NDA, Ryu. Rule number one: no questions asked."

Ryuichi is floored. For real, at their age, only Suga—and maybe his little brother—can do this to him. "And _they_ agreed?"

"Ryu, they're desperate undergrads in an unfamiliar country. They just want to graduate on time."

Ryuichi stares at him for a moment before snorting. "Yeah, I bet. Tokyo U, huh? How good are they?"

Suga's eyes narrow. "They'll take care of your _kid_ , Ryu. Which leads us to _my_ question, next: you have a kid, Ryu. I have a grandson! And you never told me! I didn't even know that you really had a stable lover! How come I never met them? How can you have a child with someone and not tell your mother? Or your _father_? Ryu, if Daichi finds out he's going to hunt you down and he's going to kill you. Prosthetics isn't going to stop him from reaching out to choke you. Ryu. Ryu, how can you do this to us? How could you?"

Suga always does that. He says your name over and over in differing tones. He always claims it’s just a habit, something his parents had done and he is now doing, but Ryuichi also knows that saying one’s name—or not at all—is an exhibition of power, just like someone saying your name wrong even though they know what it is.

Ryuichi feels guilt settle in his stomach, but he sets that aside at the moment. "It was all very… sudden. It's not my kid. Someone left it—uh, him—at my doorstep. To my receptionist, really. And Aki decided he wants to keep him."

Suga, obviously, catches the evasion and hits it head on. "Aki, huh."

"Yeah, Aki."

"Is this the same Aki who you flew Shimizu to Bali for?"

Ryuichi gulps. "Yeah, that Aki."

"I have his file, you know. I can just ask Tobio to look for his information. One of his friends is a police officer."

Ryuichi flinches. God, he's almost forty. Mothers are scary. "Uh. Want to have dinner with us sometime?"

"Us? You live together?" Suga screeches. "Ryuichi Asami-Sugawara-Sawamura! I did not raise you to be this way!"

Ryuichi smiles wryly.

**..--..**

At the age of thirteen, Ryuichi Asami meets the two people who will become his closest friends, the closest thing he'll ever have to parents, and the very people who becomes his family.

Twenty-five years later they're still the most important people in his life, and the only people who can make him feel like the worst scum on earth—but at the same time, the luckiest man alive.

**..--..**

Ryuichi leads Suga out of his office the same way he lead him in. Suga is still looking at him as if he had betrayed his trust and in a way, he had. When he was eighteen and still trying to understand his place in the world, it had been Suga who helped him realize that whatever happens, it’s his happiness that matters. And Ryuichi had promised to tell Suga anything and everything, if anything happens.

Akihito looks up from reading a magazine when the door opens.

For some reason, Ryuichi begins to feel nervous. _Well,_ he rationalizes, _I_ am _introducing my lover to my mother for the first time. I hope they like each other._

“Aki,” Ryuichi says, reaching out. Akihito understands and takes his hand, standing to be by his side. “This is Suga. He’s one of my oldest and closest friends. Suga, this is Akihito. This is stupid. Why am I doing this?”

Suga’s grin is scary when Ryuichi finally looks at him. “Don’t worry, love,” he says, “this won’t be the last time you do this.”

**..--..**

Ryuichi groans when, fifteen minutes later, Daichi walks into Suga’s office with a pissed off look on his face. He immediately comes to punch Daichi on the shoulder— _damn_ do those twin fists hurt—before seeming to settle. He smiles, and it’s almost as if he brightens the whole room with it. “I saw the boy outside. Can’t believe you had a kid, Ryu.”

“Not _mine_ ,” Ryuichi corrects. “And that hurts, Daichi.”

Daichi’s smile turns cutting, and Ryuichi suddenly regrets his life. “You know what hurts, Ryuichi? Learning your child had gotten himself a spouse. Learning only after it happens that you’re a grandparent. _That_ hurts, Ryuichi.”

Ryuichi rubs his forehead in frustration, turning to glare at Akihito when the boy dares _laugh_.

He sighs.

“Daichi, this is Akihito Takaba.” He doesn’t really know how else to voice how he feels, so all he says is, “he’s my Koushi.”

**..--..**

He expects the stunned silence.

What he doesn’t expect is Suga tearing up, wailing, and then throwing himself at him.

**..--..**

Suga and Akihito get on like wildfire. They begin talking about random things all at once and Ryuichi is reminded of two of their underclassmen in high school before the Freak Duo showed up. Ryūnosuke and Yū’s conversation sounded exactly the same: like nonsense.

**..--..**

Suga composes himself real quick, after that. And then he gathers Aki in his arms, gentle and motherly, whispering something in his ear that Ryuichi just knows it completely sappy and embarrassing.

Akihito’s red ears are telling enough.

“These people became my family, when I had no one,” Ryuichi tells him. “It might not seem like it, but they’re great people, Aki. They didn’t raise me to be the scum of the Earth.”

Suga’s laughter is watery. “I’m pretty sure you got that from Tetsu,” he says, “or maybe Wakatoshi. Hey, did you know? Shōyō hangs out with him in the national team, right, and guess what? He’s started cursing! Waka tried to convince me that Shōyō has been cursing before they started hanging out, but I just wanted a reason to yell at him.”

Ryuichi sympathizes with Wakatoshi, suddenly, even though he hasn’t felt that way for anybody in a long time—and he probably hasn’t seen Wakatoshi personally for longer. “How was it?”

“Tōru cried!” Suga laughs again, but there’s an evil undertone to it. “Oh god, he’s been holding a grudge since high school. Can you believe that? He hasn’t moved on since high school. He still hates Waka’s guts.”

Ryuichi snorts. “They keep sending me photos of the three of them going on random vacations around the world. Don’t tell me all they do is hatefuck over and over.”

“Not really,” Suga says, sighing. “Their personalities don’t really match one another, but they’re all happy.”

“Still incensed about the fact that Tooru got both his men and you didn’t?”

Suga sniffs. “I am _perfectly_ happy and content with Daichi, for your information.

“Liar,” Daichi suddenly says, and Ryuichi decides it’s finally okay to acknowledge his presence. Sometimes that’s the best way to deal with an emotional Daichi—to forget he isn’t there, to make it seem like you don’t really see him being an emotional sap. Unless you wanted him to punch you in the face, which Ryuichi doesn’t. He doesn’t think Seijūrō would appreciate seeing him with a bruise. “We still have to talk to him, by the way.”

Ryuichi stares at Suga, contemplative. “You still have it out for Chikara, huh.”

“Shut _up_.”

**..--..**

“You know, I think Koushi, at one point, thought you’d never find someone,” Daichi tells him. They’re both watching Suga and Aki fawn over something in one of Tooru’s magazines. “I’m glad you found someone, though. I think Tatsuya would appreciate if you told him, too.”

The mention of his nephew (but brother) sparks an interest in him. “Hmm. I also heard he has a girlfriend.” (Also a good way to evade a certain topic, because Daichi has never been as good as Suga at chasing after subjects that their partner in conversation tries to steer away from.)

“Heard? Or do you have someone shadowing him?” (See? Daichi didn’t even try.)

“I heard from the person shadowing him that he has a girlfriend.”

Daichi snorts. “Yeah, he does. Her name’s Anna and she’s the sweetest girl there is.”

“Anna?”

“Anna Quintin, if you want to research her. She’s an exchange student from the US. She decided to stay in Japan, and her grades are good enough. The government let her.”

“You make me sound like a madman.”

“Ryuichi, I grew up with you. I know you are.”

He glances at Daichi before he returns to staring at Akihito, now laughing at something Suga said. “I told Tetsurō I got a kid and named him Seijūrō.”

Daichi laughs. “What did he say?”

“I think I just heard all of Japan’s curses, and then some. It was funny.”

“God, I don’t even know where he picked that name up from. It makes the kid sound like some Edo-period prince.”

“I know. Kenma called me right after. He thanked me.”

“Any news on what they’re naming their kid, then?”

Ryuichi shrugs. “I don’t think Tetsu’s telling anyone this time. He might think we’ll plan on stealing his names.”

Daichi hums. “He has horrible taste in names, anyway. He’s actually kinda mad that he still doesn’t have naming rights to any of our kids.” The room stays silent after Ryuichi and Daichi share a small laugh, at least until the door bursts open, showing a very frazzled intern holding Seijūrō in his arms. “Suga-chan, so get this—” he begins, but he freezes and then clams up when he finds more than one pair of eyes looking at him.

Ryuichi feels himself tense, braced for the worst.

It’s Akihito who speaks, though. Ryuichi is not surprised.

_“Get what?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> constructive criticism is, of course, welcome! (so are corrections and any comment in general lol give me love pls i am a lonely caterpillar)
> 
> as for ryuichi's history:  
> this isn't really a headcanon so much as a spur-of-the-moment decision, but i wanted to see him more human. i mean i'm p sure he his background is either really good or really bad but i wanted to take both of those factors out and have him choose where he goes (which he did)
> 
> ALSO I NEED HELP i still haven't named the interns (lol) though they play a v big role later on and i can't decide whether to put them up as characters from another fandom or as OCs ahskjenskaje tell me pls
> 
> and i love suga okay he deserves love and he'll be the star of the next chapter and his suffering doesn't ever end


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> aka lit. what even, daichi (someone give suga a medal for being such a patient person????)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY HI FIRST OF ALL THANK YOU???? VERY MUCH???? I WASN'T EXPECTING THIS KIND OF FEEDBACK WHEN I POSTED THE FIRST CHAPTER it was my first try at crack and it turned out even angstier than i thought but people seemed to like it????? so???? thank you!!!!!!!!!!! that's all really like thank u for your comments and for reading and for risking your IQs for this i'll try my best not to make ya'll stupid lol
> 
> SECOND OF ALL SINCE THIS IS SUGA'S CHAPTER THIS IS GOING TO BE V IMPORTANT so i know that some of the queer community dislikes the fact that suga is considered "mom" by such a large portion of the fandom because it's like saying "so who's the female in the relationship" and i would just like to put this disclaimer out there that yes, i do consider suga the "mom" of the squad but NOT because i want a woman in a gay relationship but because he v much reminds me of how my momfriends act, like all caring and emotionally supportive and just being the mom friend in general (he seems like the friend who'd text you in the morning, ask you if you've eaten breakfast, remind you of homework at night, tell you to stay hydrated.) i have friends who are like that (male and female) and we call them mom and they're okay with that
> 
> so if anyone is v offended by that, i suggest you drop this now? a lot of the characters will tease and refer to suga as squad mom with AND without daichi in the picture (but i hope you enjoy it otherwise hehe)
> 
> hmm people who show up:  
> \- kenma  
> \- kuroo  
> \- bokuto  
> \- akaashi  
> \- oikawa
> 
> warnings for:  
> \- angst  
> \- mention of drugs  
> \- cursing, tbh

Koushi has always believed that patience is a virtue.

It’s the first thing he remembers his grandmother ever telling him, and it’s the last words she utters to him before she passes on. He tries to integrate patience into his life in every way possible.

He thinks he has an awful sense of humor whenever he hears his colleagues say “patients”, now that he’s a professional.

**..--..**

He meets Daichi—sweet, strong, short-fused Daichi—when he’s only nine years old, just transferred to Miyagi from Kyoto and feeling lost and completely out of place. But he is patient, because it’s the only thing he knows to be, especially now, only three months after his grandmother’s death. _Be patient,_ she tells him, _you’ll learn to speak openly soon. Be patient, you can find your words soon. Be patient, you will be able to make friends here._

Be patient, because patience is one thing he knows in a life where everything he has ever known is suddenly gone.

Daichi is patient. He waits when Koushi struggles with his words. He talks softly after Koushi flinches when he accidentally raises his voice. He stays silent when Koushi loses himself to thoughts and words in a world long left behind him.

Daichi is the first friend Koushi ever makes.

**..--..**

Daichi, it turns out, is also Koushi’s biggest test of patience.

When they are thirteen and almost in junior high, passing a ball among the three of them—him, Daichi, and a really tall, really shy boy named Asahi—and it’s summer when, one morning when Koushi drops by the Sawamura household to pick Daichi up for volleyball practice, he sees the boy by the veranda, yawning and half-asleep with his hair sticking up to all directions and scratching his stomach as he moves and Koushi thinks, _shit, I’m in love with my best friend._

When they meet Ryuichi and Asahi and Shimizu start fussing over their ‘youngest child’, he almost screams in frustration when Ryuichi asks, “How long have you and Daichi been dating?” because they aren’t dating _yet_ but he’d love very much for them to do so, and that’s what he tells Ryuichi.

He looks confused as he stares at him, passing a ball to Koushi who immediately puts the ball up in a well-executed toss. He catches it and looks at Ryuichi, who still hasn’t spoken or changed his confused face. “What?” he asks, suddenly very, very self-conscious. “Why’re you so confused?”

Ryuichi shrugs. “It just looks to me like you to have been dating since, I don’t know, the day you were born, maybe.”

Koushi laughs. “Why would you think that?” _Am I that obvious? Damn it, has Daichi noticed?_

“The way you two look at each other.”

Koushi trips over nothing. “I’m that obvious, huh.”

“Are you stupid? You aren’t listening to me. You both are.”

Koushi stares at Ryuichi, who catches the ball Koushi throws at him easily. And he realizes, maybe he should start staring at Daichi, too. Ever since the morning he realized he was in love with his best friend, Koushi has avoided looking at Daichi directly in the eye, in fear of staring too _long_ and it’d make things very, very obvious.

“You should try watching him sometime,” Ryuichi advises, confirming Koushi’s thoughts. “You’ll get just what we mean. Shimizu thinks she’ll never be able to look at boys the same again after seeing you two.”

Koushi flushes and punches Ryuichi on the arm.

**..--..**

They’re in their third year in high school and they’re training their newest members and Koushi feels like he’s about to go crazy. Ryuichi never stops teasing him about it, really—whenever he meets his eyes after staring at Daichi there’s a knowing, challenging smirk on his face that Koushi answers with a scowl because _no_ , _I’m not confessing to Daichi, let the blockhead realize his feelings himself._

He _loves_ his new team—he loves the freshmen, he loves the second years, he loves their new coach and their new adviser and he loves Saeko-nee and he loves Yachi. He loves the friendships and rivalries he has developed through the years, loves the fact that even though it’s such a competitive sport, it’s still a common interest that has given them a reason to bond.

But he loves Daichi and it’s obvious to nearly _everyone_ , Daichi’s ex-girlfriend included, that Daichi felt the same way. And, because Koushi has been told that he needs to be patient, he convinces himself that if he confesses himself it’s him being impatient and really, he doesn’t know how waiting six years can even be considered _impatient,_ but, nothing changes. He keeps waiting, Daichi keeps evading the responsibility of moving their relationship forward.

Everyone teases them—usually unintentionally, but Bokuto, Kuuro and Ryuichi all decide they need to get together and _they_ start the teasing _intentionally_ , even going as far as involving other teams in a movement they called Get Our Fave Miyagi Vice-Captain Laid Group.

**..--..**

He first finds out about it after their first practice game against Nekoma High in the summer of their second year. Ryuichi, as always, had followed them to Tokyo to hang out with his so-called volleyball dorks and also to keep the rest of the team in check—their freshmen, Noya and Tanaka, needed the handling very much, thanks—but he gels with the two captains from Tokyo real quick, two minutes into meeting.

He only finds out because Ryuichi, in an uncharacteristic show of carelessness, had left his phone on the bench and it had made a sound, an alert that he had received a message. Koushi had just happened to glance at the screen and found out what the subject was.

When confronted, Ryuichi admits to it really quick, really straightforward, telling him, “Come on, Suga, everyone’s tired of watching you two dance around each other. It’s time one of you made a move and if it’s going to take three shitheads to do it, then so be it.”

Koushi had simply shaken his head then, half-amused and half-exasperated.

**..--..**

He nearly tears his hair out when he finds Oikawa making out, _very aggressively_ , with Iwaizumi in the Karasuno locker room after the national finals against Nekoma.

“ _We_ won, Oikawa, for fuck’s sake!” he had yelled at the both of them, dazed and with bruised lips and Iwaizumi still has his hand down Oikawa’s shorts and he _smirks,_ and Koushi could’ve said _fuck that_ to patience if not for _Ushiwaka Wakatoshi_ entering the locker room, gently nudging Koushi aside, and is immediately climbed by _both_ Oikawa and Iwaizumi—the former needily suckling at his lips while the latter latches on his neck and Koushi finds it completely unfair that Oikawa get to have _both_ of his crushes, with one of them in another school in another _prefecture,_ while Koushi has to suffer watching _his_ crush fumble about _every day_ because they’re both in the same school.

 _They_ won nationals, _they_ won the Battle at the Garbage Dump, it was _his_ play that got them their last point, and he can’t even hug Daichi in public while _here these assholes are_ , making out in a locker room that isn’t even theirs.

(Why is Seijoh even here? They lost the preliminaries last month. Are they here for Ushiwaka, then? How long have they been dating? Why can’t Koushi have it as good as Oikawa? Life is unfair.)

**..--..**

In the end, it’s not the GOFMVCLG (which soon turns to become just GOFMCLG and then turns into Get Daichi Laid RN) that pushes them closer together, but Koushi himself. They’re halfway through the first semester of their first year in college and he’s sick and tired of everyone in Tokyo finding _his_ Daichi attractive so, when they arrive at the apartment he shares with Daichi, Ryuichi and Asahi, he pulls at Daichi’s collar and presses their lips together, patience be damned.

At first Daichi does not react, but then he starts kissing back and Koushi _swoons_ because _damn it_ , he did _not_ expect Daichi to be such a good kisser, but he is and Koushi is incredibly happy and so, so very horny so he pulls away and says, “Daichi. I waited for seven years. If I’m not in your bed in the next two minutes, I am getting out of this door and I’m going to beg someone else.”

**..--..**

Daichi knows, Koushi knows he knows, and he knows Koushi knows that he knows that it was a lie. Koushi wouldn’t be able to just ask a random stranger on the street to sleep with him. If he could, he already would have, but aside from patient Koushi is also very, very romantic and wanted to have his first time with Daichi.

They’re in bed, naked and sated and holding each other in their arms, when Daichi finally says the words, _“I love you,”_ sweet and quiet and intimate and right up against Koushi’s ear, and _that_ turns Koushi in again so he rolls over, straddling Daichi and rolling his hips against Daichi’s and moaning because Daichi is hard and—

**..--..**

They’re contemplating a third round when thuds and knocks start sounding throughout the apartment—an unusual and very alarming sound because, even when inebriated, none of them are remotely clumsy with their limbs, so in a decision-making move that they have developed through years of friendship and being captain and vice-captain of a nationally winning team, they pulled away from each other and pulled their clothes back on.

Daichi kisses him on the mouth and pushes him back before leaving the bedroom first. Something warm settles in his stomach at the protective gesture, but worry still nags at him as they weave through the apartment to the front. They hear voices murmuring, and they recognize Asahi’s low, worried tone almost immediately. Daichi moves forward first, but he freezes by the doorway so it’s Koushi who reaches Ryuichi first.

**..--..**

The first time he finds Ryuichi banged up and completely unable to move on his own, they’re only fourteen years old. When he asked the orphanage’s headmaster, he had said that Ryuichi came home bloody and limping, and he said that he had gotten into a fight. What he doesn’t know is that there was an eye-witness to the whole thing: a whole group of bigger, older boys had cornered Ryuichi and began beating up at once. The eye-witness had had to leave to ask for help—it was a younger girl who also lived in the orphanage—and Koushi recognizes the attackers as the very same people who had bullied and tormented him, only to have Ryuichi stand up for him.

So they had cornered Ryuichi when he was alone, ganged up on him six to one, made sure he wouldn’t be able to fight back. (But he did, oh he did. He gave back as good as he got. He punched faces and kicked stomachs and he even flipped someone over before they realized they didn’t have to all be punching him at the same time—two of them could hold him down while the rest rained down their hits.)

Ryuichi had rejected his help at first, not opening the door at all and leaving Koushi to lean against the wood and _beg_. The room is so quiet that Koushi almost walks away, but there’s a rustle from inside that has him alert, has him wincing in sympathy when he hears a thud followed by a pained grunt.

“Ryuichi,” Koushi says again, “what are you doing in there?”

There’s a thud, right at the door Koushi is leaning against. “I’m scared,” Ryuichi says. “I’m afraid. I wasn’t all there when it happened, Koushi. I was gone, and when I came back, all of us where bleeding on the floor.”

**..--..**

When they were in third year in high school, right before the National Championships, Tooru somehow manages to plan an All-Setters’ Lunch in Tokyo, inviting top setters—and setters from top schools—around the country and gathering them in a single restaurant. Koushi and Kageyama, with no better thing to do, decided why not? And went off on their own adventure together.

They see Kenma and Tooru first, and the four of them reserve a table in the restaurant to wait for the rest of the invitees to arrive.

The first one is Akaashi, and he looks relieved when he sees Kenma and Koushi.

“We need to separate Bokuto-san, Kuroo-san, and Asami-san,” he says in greeting, taking a seat next to Tooru.

Who raises an eyebrow in question. “The Three Stooges. I thought they had a good relationship?”

To their surprise, it’s Kenma who answers first. He shakes his head. “It’s _not_. It’s fine that Kuroo seems to be having fun, but it’s not fun when they’re putting themselves in danger.”

Koushi frowns. He doesn’t know anything about this. “Explain,” he says.

Akaashi leans closer to the table, clearing his throat before speaking. “I’m sure you know that they’ve been pulling pranks, just… having fun in general. But not always the good fun. Their pranks are becoming more and more extreme.”

“Are you talking about this weekend?”

Anxiety climbs up Koushi’s spine. “What about this weekend?”

Akaashi glances up and then straightens his back. More of their guests have arrived. All of them somehow quietly agree that they need to talk about this after lunch, and Tooru, being the good host that he is—and being the only one who is both involved and not, he entertains their guests—now friends, really—introduces people who don’t know each other, making quips and teasing and just being an overall sociable person.

Koushi can’t feel it. He feels fear and worry and anxiety warring at the pit of his stomach. He can’t even enjoy the lunch they have—although it looks absolutely _delicious_ —and he swears to himself he’ll make it up to all of them one day. Maybe after he has punched Ryuichi in the face, and when he’s more settled in his skin. He knows nothing about what happened this weekend—he knows Ryuichi came to Tokyo, of course, to meet up with Bokuto and Kuroo, but he doesn’t know what they did. He’s getting the feeling he isn’t going to like it, though.

**..--..**

Turns out he’s right. Three hours after they leave the original Setter Group to go to a different café, just the four of them, he sits with his warm chocolate burning his hands through the porcelain, staring at Kenma in disbelief. And fear, maybe.

He can’t tell how Oikawa is taking it, but he isn’t taking it any good, that’s for sure. Ryuichi had almost gotten sent to _prison_. After they played a prank.

With drugs.

“Whose idea was it?” Koushi asks, because he has no idea what else to say after finding out what, exactly, those three had gotten up to when they met up last weekend. “Where’d they get them?”

Akaashi shakes his head. “No one knows. I don’t. Bokuto-san won’t tell me anything. He won’t let me speak to Kuroo-san alone, either. They’re still texting, though, so I know they… haven’t learned their lesson.”

They had either managed to get their hands on a shit ton of illegal drugs, or they somehow found a way to make those drugs without getting found out by the authorities—well, until this weekend, when they placed an anonymous call to the police but at the same time gave a lead to some underground gangster thugs and… well, Koushi shivers to think, at least no one died.

**..--..**

He doesn’t quite know how to deal with Ryuichi after that, but the first thing Kōshi feels when he sees Ryuichi, half-leaning against Asahi and half-listing off to the side, is an all-consuming panic.

There was no other way to explain how he feels as he looks at Ryuichi, bleeding and bruised and in need of help. He can never remember, not completely, how they had gotten him to the bathroom, but he does remember the smell of alcohol, the copper tang of blood and fear in the air, and the feel of Ryuichi’s skin against his, of Daichi telling him _it’s okay, it’s not that deep. He’ll be okay, Koushi._ And suddenly, he doesn’t quite mind anymore, whatever Ryuichi and Bokuto and Kuroo did, he just needed to know they were _safe_.

He doesn’t get it as badly as he did after that, but the worry doesn’t stop. Ryuichi moves out of their apartment, deciding to finally live in his old family home, and they don’t see each other as often anymore. Koushi thinks, maybe that’s part of how life is, when you’re friends with one of Japan’s underground elite.

So when, after a few years of not seeing each other, Ryuichi calls him—bleeding his life out of bullet holes and fighting to fly to China—all Koushi remembers feeling for whoever caused him that much grief was _animosity._ Not _hate_ , because Koushi doesn’t ever believe he’s capable of such extreme emotion, but he does feel no fondness for them, either.

“I need to save him, Suga,” Ryuichi says, and Koushi wants to punch him in the face because he’s still bleeding, the wound on his thigh is infected, and he has lost so much blood that he can’t even stand straight.

“You can’t save anyone if you can’t even hold a gun, Ryuichi,” he says instead, as calm as ever, because he has to be calm and rational. He can’t deal with an agitated Ryuichi with agitation. Ryuichi will win.

“The longer I spend here—”

“You are _not going to Hong Kong, Ryuichi_.”

Ryuichi’s face hardens, and though it isn’t the first time that Koushi has seen his Japan Underworld Lord face, it is the first time he has seen it directed at and used on him, and he feels betrayal all of a sudden. Because Ryuichi had sworn, he had _promised_ , that he will never use his position in society—well, whatever it is—against him, against Daichi, against their friends, and Ryuichi is ready to throw all of that away for the sake of one _boy_.

All Koushi has ever heard of him from the vineyard that is the underground gossip mill he is somehow privy to is that he’s a toy, someone they never have to meet because he’s not important, he’s replaceable, he doesn’t hold that much importance to Asami-sama.

Apparently, they were wrong, and for the first time since he was seven and had just lost his grandmother, Koushi feels his patience running out. But not the patience that keeps his temper in check, no—it’s the patience that’s keeping him from giving up. And that’s the thought that jars him enough that he flinches away from Ryuichi, who he hadn’t noticed is reaching for him.

Ryuichi’s eyes are wide, scared, and it reminds Koushi of back when they were eighteen and Ryuichi mouths, _I don’t know what to do._ It’s the first time Koushi has ever rejected Ryuichi’s touch, and Koushi takes a step back. He says, “I’m sorry. You can’t leave. You have to get better first,” and then he walks out of the room.

**..--..**

When they were eighteen and Ryuichi chooses to follow in his father’s footsteps, Koushi sees a look on his face that tells him _why_ , and he cannot forgive himself if he doesn’t tell Ryuichi. So after they fight, he goes to him and holds his hands in both of his.

“You can choose whatever you want,” Koushi tells him, and he’s tearing up. “Just promise me one thing. Look at me in the eye and tell me you’re choosing this because it’s what you think is best for you, because it’s what will make you happy. Tell me straight to my face that you’re not choosing this because you think it’s _fate_ , because you think you’re no better than the violence that it entails.”

And Daichi, sweet, strong Daichi, finally _understands_. He looks at Ryuichi, and they all remember the many times when they were younger that Ryuichi had gotten into fights, had voluntarily taken the fall, the two times their parents had to pay for his bail and the number of times Ryuichi had denied hanging out with them because he was too hurt to leave his bed.

“Is that what you believe?” Daichi asks, slow and quiet. “Is that why you’re choosing this? Because you think it’s what you _deserve_?”

“All I know is how to hurt people,” Ryuichi confesses to them. “And I can be _good_ at this, please.”

“You’ve never hurt _us_ ,” Koushi insists. “We’ve fought, we’ve yelled at each other, but that’s all part of us growing with each other. Do you think you’ll ever be able to hurt _us?”_

And Ryuichi finally gets that he is more than his blood, more than what his past dictated his future to be. When he chooses it again, it’s because he wants to be powerful enough to protect what is important to him, and he _does_.

**..--..**

And Koushi knows he is. Powerful enough to protect what is his, that is. But he’s also human, and he isn’t infallible, and he can’t find it in himself to feel for anyone who puts his friend in the face of danger. On the second night of Ryuichi’s hospital arrest, Koushi enters his room. He is delirious with fever, the antibiotics are barely working, and the only thing that’s coming out of his lips is one word, one name, _one person_ that Koushi is slowly learning to _hate_.

“Aki,” Ryuichi says, as Koushi reaches for his IV. He fixes up a new, stronger antibiotic, and plunges that into the line. Ryuichi flinches, but he doesn’t wake. “Aki,” he calls again. “Aki.”

Twelve hours later, Ryuichi’s fever is gone, his infection has been solved, and his wounds do not open at the slightest twinge. Koushi hands him a bag of medication, instructs Kirishima to make sure he doesn’t get into a gunfight, and sends him away.

**..--..**

Two weeks later, Shimizu is being flown from the hospital to an island in Indonesia.

“I’m alright,” Ryuichi tells him in a phone call. “It’s Aki. He’s hurt. I’ll send her back with Kirishima as soon as we make sure Akihito hadn’t picked up anything from where he was… kept.”

Guilt floods Koushi, but he denies the emotion. He doesn’t need to feel guilty about someone who had put his friend in danger. And that is what this Akihito person had done, over and over. For a moment, he wonders if he’ll ever meet the man, and if he’ll ever be able to forgive him.

Or himself.

**..--..**

As Koushi looks at him now, fawning over one of Tooru’s magazines, he feels himself sigh in relief. He never wanted to admit it, but as much as he hated what had happened to Ryuichi, he also knows that it wouldn’t have happened if this man hadn’t meant anything to him.

 _He’s my Koushi,_ Ryuichi had told them. _He’s the most important thing in my life._

“Oh god,” Akihito says, his voice high and squealing, “ _look_ at him! He’s trying to walk!”

Koushi looks over the boy’s shoulder and coos at the image of a child trying to walk. He’s one of Tooru’s friends’ kids, who had joined the photoshoot accidentally. The boy in the picture was trying to get to Tooru, who was kneeling close by, arms outstretched. Both of them were smiling.

“Ugh, I wish I’d entered celebrity photography instead.”

“And what, kissed every idol’s ass until you made them look like pretty dolls?”

Akihito laughs, and Koushi thinks, _It’s not even a question of forgiving him anymore. I wonder if I can forgive myself._

**..--..**

He is protective. He is charming, and he stands up to Ryuichi. If he hadn’t already, Koushi would’ve approved of Akihito now, as they stare at the intern who stares at the boy snoozing in Ryuichi’s arms.

“Suga-chan,” the boy says again, and then he scratches the back of his head. _“Actually I don’t think I can explain this in Japanese,”_ he continues, slipping into English. _“Uh, I can call Yuu here, though?”_

 _“It’s okay,”_ Daichi says, smiling at him encouragingly, if not a little terrifyingly. Koushi understands the way he takes a step back. _“What’s wrong?”_

 _“Uh, well, nothing, really,”_ the boy says, _“he’s not sick or anything. Completely healthy, actually, perfect weight and size for a three-year-old; no worms, no lice, and no skin problems except for—uh—”_

 _“For what?”_ Ryuichi demands.

 _“He has. Um. He has at least 13 track marks, five on the left arm, four on the right arm, two on his left calf, two on the right thigh.”_ The boy looks sick at the end of his listing, gulping. _“We’ve uh—we’ve taken blood, skin, and hair samples to the toxicology department. The results are coming in about, um, four hours.”_

“Fuck,” Daichi hisses, staring wide-eyed at the child Ryuichi is almost clutching at. “Fucking hell.”

“But, uh,” the boy pipes up, and he flinches when all eyes turn to him again, _“this isn’t an isolated phenomenon? Like, uh, this isn’t the first time this has happened?”_

 _“To an infant?”_ Ryuichi asks. Koushi wonders if he thinks it’s his business that had caused this.

The boy nods. _“Yeah. It’s been, uh, seen around the world? Not in a scale that will have mainstream media panicking over it, but it’s bad enough that it has us who figured it out in a tizzy.”_

 _Of course it does,_ Koushi thinks dazedly, knowing just how exactly they feel, horrified at the image that that it conjures.

_“Uh, we can’t really say for sure if it’s what we think it is, until the reports come in, but. From past experience, they’re usually clean. They weren’t born with it, they were just… kids with track marks all over their bodies.”_

_“So we’re not dealing with infantile drug addiction,”_ Koushi clarifies, feeling like the weight of the world has just been lifted off of his chest. _“It wasn’t drugs?”_

_“We’re not sure yet. There has been one or two incidents where kids born with infantile drug addiction were abandoned because their parents couldn’t afford the treatment anymore.”_

_They couldn’t afford the treatment, but they could afford the drugs,_ Koushi thinks. He takes a deep breath, studying Akihito. The man looks horrified, staring at the child in Ryuichi’s arms. His hand is clenched against his bouncing knee. For a moment, Koushi thinks he sees not a man but a boy—and for someone working in criminal journalism, if this is how he reacts, then it must look as bad as Koushi thinks it does.

 _“Mika?”_ he calls, finally remembering the boy’s name. Mikaela, born and raised in Germany, in his fourth year of Public Health. Wants to go to the University of Tokyo for medicine proper, to specialize in oncology. _“Do you think you can tell us everything you know? Start from the beginning.”_

 _"Before that, just one question,"_ Daichi says, and he's frowning at the intern.  _"What are you wearing?"_

The kid blushes and then looks down at his scrubs: they're bright pink and printed with cartoon characters.  _"I was at the pedia ward when--uh, one of the kids decided the intern's ugly uniform looked better with today's breakfast."_

There's a break in the tension that surrounds all of them, and even the young intern looks relieved when everyone relaxes. He feels for the boy--he remembers his own hardships as an intern, the pressure of having to please your superiors and professors at the same time...

*.*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY GUYS THAT'S ALL I HAVE FOR NOW I HOPE YOU GUYS ARE HAPPY (pls leave me comments i love comments so much)
> 
> also YES I KNOW i named the interns Yuu and MIka but i can change that i still haven't decided if i'm gonna make this into a c/o w/ ONS or make the college kids OCs pls give me suggestions or ideas haha ty guys
> 
> NOTE ON INFANTILE DRUG ADDICTION:  
> It's a very real, very dangerous phenomenon and it's becoming more and more prevalent around the world nowadays. It's usually to heroin, but some children have been documented to have been born addicted to cocaine. They treat these kids the same way they would adult or juvenile drug addicts: by giving them less and less dosages of the drug while the body relearns (or, in an infant's case, learns) how to function without the drugs. 
> 
> FUN FACT:  
> The "white looks better w/ breakfast" thing actually happened to me while I was volunteering at the children's ward lol it was a great adventure coz i didn't bring extra clothes w/ me, it was 35 degrees outside, and i had puke all over my shirt. Ha. (I fared better. Lol. A junior doctor lent me his sweater #goals)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> still living for the Kiyoko Is The Most Beautiful Woman trope lol

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY YO I AM BACK
> 
> because of school (and health, i guess, lol) and other responsibilities tm this might be the last update in a while. i'll try to keep the updates coming every other week or, if i can't, every month (lol) i have the basic gist of the story planned, and i just need to fatten it up a bit until it gets to at least the amount of detailed that i usually want.
> 
> anyway
> 
> I'D JUST LIKE TO THANK EVERYONE WHO IS TAKING THE TIME TO READ THIS PIECE OF SHIT WORK, FOR COMMENTING AND LEAVING KUDOS AND I LOVE EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU PLEASE KEEP COMMENTING all sorts of criticism is welcome. next chapter MIGHT reveal just what the hell i'm planning for this particular 'verse, so i hope you're looking forward to that!!!!

**Chapter 4**

  


Akihito feels like he’s about to go crazy. He does _not_ like being out of the loop of anything, ever since he was a child—but more than that, the present situation is starting to take its toll on him.

Especially as he realizes just how much a toddler left by who knows who in the lobby of his condominium building twelve hours ago means to him. He is terrified, but mostly at the moment, horrified.

The intern—and Koushi, of course—has reassured them that it might (probably) not be drug addiction after all, but just the thought of it happening—adults, injecting children, getting them addicted to drugs before they can even think for themselves—is enough to send shivers down Akihito’s spine. He works with crimes, and drugs and drug deals are nothing but backyard brawls to him.

But he has never had to deal with crimes involving children: the editor in chief left those cases to the senior journalists and suddenly Akihito is glad for their tendencies to look at anyone younger than thirty-five as a child, and thus unable to handle the “harsher” realities. Such as these. He wonders if Mitarai has handled children’s cases before, if he had ever had to.

He remembers covering an accident because no one else had been available—and it was in the middle of fucking December. He remembers freezing up when he gets there, because he can hear the faint sniffling and whining of a child caught under the car. He brings up his camera and starts taking pictures from where he stands, slowly approaching where three firemen were kneeling on the iced concrete, a fourth one on his belly. All three of them were singing Christmas songs softly, and Akihito takes a picture of the scene.

No one takes notice of him, all of them concentrating their energies and efforts in—

Akihito almost starts crying at the sight. There’s a child—maybe five, or six—stuck under the flipped car. She seems to have been crying, but she’s singing along to the carols that the firemen were singing her. There is a bloody arm across her torso, the wrist held under what looks like the car seat. Her head is bleeding.

The girl gets rescued half an hour later, after the city engineer’s office finally gets a crane to the scene, lifting the wreck slowly, as the firemen do their best to keep the girl stable and from further injuring her. She’s unconscious and half-dead from hypothermia at that point, and Akihito feels something in him slowly rolling.

He doesn’t sleep that night.

He wonders how they can do it—the people who take on children’s cases, cases that are worse than these; the people who volunteer to rescue children who have been prostituted, people who volunteer to help children sold to slavery and other things that children should not have experienced.

He wonders what Seijūrō has experienced, before he was brought to Ryuichi’s doorstep.

He wonders who _R_ is, how they’re connected to the child, and why they would choose _Ryuichi_ of all people to entrust a child to.

**..--..**

The would-be explanations are cut short by a brisk knock on the door. Neither Koushi and Daichi—who Akihito have come to understand are Very Important People in this hospital—have even had a chance to open their mouths to let the person in when they open the door, and in comes one of the most beautiful women Akihito has ever seen.

Which says a lot. He’s a photographer.

**..--..**

Akihito is pissed the first time he is asked— _tasked_ —to assist a photographer in an idol gravure shoot.

He had been following lead after lead (goose chase after goose chase) just the week before about a corrupt politician and his rumored elicit meetings with drug dealers. The rumors say he supplies the drugs that these people sell—and that most of his fortune had come from there. Akihito had followed the man from Tokyo to Hokkaido, to Kyoto, up to Akita, and then down south to Yamaguchi, but—point _is_ , it was a stupid case and it was an even stupider context because

The man wasn’t a crook

He wasn’t giving them drugs

He was getting them off the streets.

And so Akihito goes back home to Tokyo, tired and disappointed—although he’s excited for his new “exposition”, and his mood only gets worse when he gets the call that instructs him to go to one of Saitama’s higher end buildings to assist in a shoot.

He gets there bright and early—he likes to scope out his area of work for the moment, maybe even take pictures of the scenery. They’re shooting at the rooftop, taking advantage of clear skies and cool wind, before the monsoon systems start coming in. He had taken about sixty pictures of Saitama’s skyline when the first person related to the shoot arrives: one of the idols’ managers, a beautiful, curvaceous, confident woman who doesn’t smile at Akihito—nor sneer at him.

She simply surveys the expanse of the rooftop—it’s a building large enough for a helipad on top, at least—and then walks over to where Akihito is sitting on the ledge, legs swinging and heels tapping rhythmically against the side of the building. “Care for a smoke?” she asks, and Akihito can only shake his head in denial.

She is stunning, and he is very much stunned. Her face is delicate but strong, her body limber but lithe. Her voice is big but gentle—she’s the personification of a beautiful oxymoron, in Akihito’s young eyes. Without thinking much of it, he raises his camera and snaps a picture of her—the face of relaxation, eyes closed as she takes a hit of a stick of tobacco, the winds of the rooftop whipping her hair around her like a dark halo, contrasting the brightness of her background perfectly. Her clothes ripple around her like second skin, and Akihito feels himself blush when she opens her eyes, only to squint at him.

“I’m sorry—” he says, just as she tells him, “You’re a photographer. You can’t resist what you think is beautiful.”

They stay in that suspended moment of silence before Akihito breaks it with an awkward laugh. “Um,” he says, for the first time finding himself at a loss for words. “I’m Akihito. Akihito Takaba, I’ll be assisting Takeo-sensei in today’s shoot.”

She smiles at him, and he feels his heart lurch to his stomach because that smile is _dangerous._ “I’m Anika Suzuki. I’m in charge of the twins, Haru-chan and Hana-chan. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Akihito-kun.”

Akihito smiles back at her, because he doesn’t know what else to do. He figures he doesn’t have to, when the door opens again and Takeo-sensei comes in, followed by all of his other assistants and the people in charge of technical and there are artists everywhere and Akihito busies himself with taking random pictures of what is happening, and doing whatever random task Takeo-sensei thinks to make him do.

When they finish the shoot, Akihito realizes he hasn’t really taken a picture of the three idols he _should_ have focused on, and his films are filled with candid pictures of one Anika Suzuki from that day.

She becomes the most beautiful woman on Earth.

**..**

It doesn’t really change, as a year pass and Akihito sees her more and more regularly as he is relegated to the more menial of photographic tasks, but the time also gives him more time to be exposed to other beautiful creatures that human genetics—and cosmetics—can produce. Akihito meets Ai Momohara, Yui Asai; at one point he manages to be appointed to assist in the shoot of an American up and coming actress.

They all become _beautiful women,_ but no one beats Anika in the spot of _most beautiful_.

**..**

 _Until today,_ Akihito thinks, sending Anika his thoughts and apologies at the very sudden dethronement. The woman is around Ryuichi’s age, maybe a year younger; she has a beauty mark near her mouth, and her hair is so smooth and long that it sways with every minute movement.

“Koushi-san,” she begins, her eyes flicking to Akihito before resting to Ryuichi—surprise lights her eyes then, before the most beautiful smile stretches on her lips. “Ryuichi-san. I haven’t seen you in a while.”

Ryuichi looks rueful as he moves forward, giving her a one-armed hug as the other keeps the sleeping Seijuuro stable. “It’s nice to see you, Kiyoko.”

“Hmm, good news or bad news?” Koushi asks, before waving the blond intern away. Akihito wants to chase after him.

“Well, no bad news here,” Kiyoko-san says, smiling softly. “He’s healthy, no abnormalities in his initial results, but we’ll need to give him his shots and assess his developmental stages. We want to do that while waiting for the MRI and the toxicology results.”

“He got an MRI?” Ryuichi asks, his arm tightening around the toddler. He grunts.

Kiyoko-san touches Ryuichi’s arm, and Akihito finds himself getting jealous for the weirdest reasons. _He_ wants to be gently touched by such a beautiful woman, too! “It’s just for precaution, Ryuichi-san. There’s nothing obviously wrong with him, but with the amount of track marks found on his body, we wanted to make sure it didn’t meddle with his brain structures. If there’s anything that comes up in his physical and mental assessments, the results may explain those easily.”

Akihito blinks. He admits he knows next to nothing in medical jargon—there’s a reason he’s in crime, after all—but even he can’t help but be impressed. In the half-hour he has spent in this hospital (in the admin room, to be perfectly honest) he has come to be familiar with Karasu Medical Center: it’s a medical community that gives free services to the poor, but is more than good enough that even the higher-upper-class prefer it to the national state hospitals.

From the anecdote he had read in one of the medical journals he was bored enough to read, it started as an independent medical practice for diagnostics that Koushi had started, but it bloomed and got enough sponsors and investors that it is the big name that it is now. Akihito doesn’t really _know_ them, but they’re Ryuichi’s close friends—family, he thinks—and he decides that that gives him enough right to feel proud of what Koushi and Daichi have both achieved in their hospital.

Ryuichi's frown does not disappear completely, but it lessens some. “How do those tests work, anyway?”

“Our interns got those covered,” Koushi says, proudly. “It's what they're good at: neonatal and pediatric developmental monitoring. They're acing their exams because of us.”

Ryuichi squints. “You have no doctors supervising them?”

Koushi laughs, and _damn_ , it sounds like music. Akihito feels inferior in comparison. “They've been here three months and they've never really needed it. They get assessments, of course, but they're even better than most of our harried professionals. I just relegate them into the more serious of jobs: the ones that actually _pay_.”

“So they don't,” Ryuichi says flatly, and this time it's Akihito who stands up to touch his arm.

“I'll take him,” he says finally, gently rocking Sei until the toddler wakes up, blinking up at him slowly. He opens his mouth with a yawn, making a small sound at the back of his throat. There's a collective 'aw' from all the adults in the room, and Akihito decides to just screw it. He grabs Sei and pulls him to his chest, bouncing him gently as he looks at Kiyoko. “So, the tests?”

She smiles at him and he feels his heart seize in his chest. “Mika,” she calls, and the door opens to show the same boy as earlier. When he smiles, it's toothy and boyish, and Akihito regrets not bringing a camera because that smile belongs in print. “Bring Seijuuro with you to the dev room, will you?”

“Sure thing,” Mika answers, coming forward and bringing his hands up, reaching towards Sei. The boy immediately reaches for him, too, and Akihito really couldn't help the 'aw' that leaves his mouth at the image that they make together. “Is anyone coming with him?”

“I am,” he says readily. “You guys catch up,” he tells Ryuichi and the others. “I'll… be in the dev room.”

Kiyoko nods, still smiling. “It'll take a little less than an hour and a half, don't worry. We just have a lot of traffic today.”

Akihito nods and follows after Mika, who had already left the room. He hears “how are the kids” before the door closes behind him, a small resounding 'click' followed by faint footsteps. Just because he let them take Sei doesn't mean he won't worry. He's just about ready to grab the kid and make a run for it, Ryuichi or no.

(Okay, that train of thought it dangerous. He shakes his head at it immediately, because he knows he'll never really be able to run away from Ryuichi—at least, not now. Not anymore.)

They turn and Akihito hurries to catch up, only to freeze when the hallway literally just ends into a large room, this one accentuating the sterile silence of the rest of the floor behind him. It's like a _jungle_ in here, a cacophony of noises—children yelling and laughing, adults talking, the _click click_ of a computer keyboard; somewhere he can hear something slapping against concrete and wonders what it is. Above the din, though, there's a general atmosphere of quiet relaxation, and Akihito reckons this is one of the more hopeful wards in the hospital. There are so many children—Akihito estimates about thirty—scattered around the place: getting carted around by interns in white; sitting on desks and getting examined by more interns in white; but most are on the floor, busy amusing themselves with random toys. There are about five or six interns seated around the floor supervising them. They should look like the most relaxed of them all, but if anything, they look more harried than the ones trying to catch children's attention so they can flash penlights into their eyes or get their temperatures.

He does not envy their jobs. (Or soon-to-be jobs, anyway. He makes a note to start praying for them to graduate on time, if he gets the chance.) Akihito suddenly sympathizes with Koushi's decisions to allow interns to train here: while its services are top-notch and makes a go-to for the elite, it's also has a social system that makes it friendly to the masses—literally allows them to experience people from all walks of life, but at the same time alleviate the job load to people who know what they're doing. Win-win, in Akihito's eyes. (But he can't really judge, can he? He dropped out of that one business class he took while he was in college, and never really listened to his sociology professors, either.)

Akihito watches as Mika passes Sei off to another intern, who talks to him about one thing or another before waving him off. She then turns her full attention to Sei, who laughs at some face she makes, one hand on his back to keep him steady while another gets her stethoscope from its position around her neck to around her head, using one end to amuse Sei as she takes a piece of paper and write something down. She doesn't at all seem bothered that another child is gnawing a hole into her pants.

When he takes the time to look around the room again, he finds an area cordoned-off by those ribbon things they have at grocery check outs. Seats are arranged at random and the adults—parents, maybe—are there, waiting, some talking with others and others just watching the chaos silently. He makes his way over, stepping over toys and children and books and sidestepping this large intern who comes barreling toward him, picking up toddler after toddler and letting them hang off of his neck, arms, and shoulders. He has seven giggling little humans hanging onto him by the time he passes Akihito. He picks up one more, tossing her into the air before catching her and securing her against his waist.

He's awed. He has seen Sudou, Kabo, and other like-sized guards working for and with Ryuichi before, and this kid might just be around that size too, and now he can't take the image of those men running around with toddlers using them as monkey bars off of his head. He tries not to laugh, but he ultimately fails and simply shakes his head instead.

The closer he gets to the waiting area, the quieter it seems to get—each step closer has three less toys, one less child playing on the floor. When he's nearly there—looking for the break on the cordon—he finally notices that there's a small area isolated from the rest of the floor by three desks—each one holding a computer and a printer and manned by interns who all have glasses, studiously staring into the monitors and fingers flying over keyboards. This is where the continuous clicking sounds are coming from. There are about six more children here, each one accompanied by an intern who do what look like random drills with them. He finally finds the opening, entering and immediately taking a seat beside a man wearing a suit. They nod at each other, but keep from conversing.

His eyes immediately scan the room for Sei, finding him seated on another desk now, being examined by a different intern. Akihito watches for a moment as his head follows the penlight, somehow proud when the intern raises her hand and he immediately gives her a high-five. He frowns at that, because they surely didn't teach him that. Maybe it's something he learned before he got to them?

The question of _where was he before he got to us_ is derailed when Akihito hears the man beside him say, “…can't leave my child in the hospital.” He doesn't really mean to eavesdrop, but Akihito was trained as a journalist and every good journalist knows that all good information come from listening in on the right conversations, and it wins against his sense of propriety. He'll let himself feel guilty later. “No! I'm telling you, I can't. She's more important to me than a damned promotion—i have the papers and the experience to get the next one. Masayoshi can take this for all I care.”

Ah, a salary man, then. Probably dropping a conference or meeting worth points for the sake of being with his daughter in this particular hospital visit. Akihito finds himself appreciating that: a man who would turn down his career for his child is slowly becoming rarer and rarer, perfectly complementing the fact that more and more women are spending time studying and getting married—thus pregnant—at later ages. A man who already has a career going for him, though, and who is willingly giving up a surely well-earned promotion? That's novel, and probably harder to find than someone who is willing to wait to start a family.

Traditional Japanese concepts are getting ripped apart every year, and Akihito is loving every minute of it.

It doesn't stop the bitterness that rises in _him_ , though, because as much as he had told Ryuichi—just last night, even—that he would willingly give up his job of danger and thrills to get a more stable job for a family, he also knows that he'll never really be _willing_. The more he thinks about it, the more he realizes that there's literally nothing that will make him _want_ to give up his job for real—not a beautiful wife, not a laughing child, not even if he got sent to the hospital again. Hell forever want to go back to his career: for selfish reasons, the thrill of it; for less so, to expose the dark underworld that the world is revolving on top of. Where does this put him, then?

Will he be able to give up a perfect scoop for a day waiting around for Sei at the hospital? Taking care of him at home? Picking him up from school?

A giant ball of guilt rises and wraps around him like a dark veil as the only answer that comes to him is _I don't know, I don't know, I don't know_.

And he genuinely doesn't, because while he doesn't see himself abandoning his career as a criminal photojournalist, he also doesn't see himself being able to leave Sei alone in a room, or in the care of a total stranger. He sees himself leaving, he sees himself staying; he feels himself regretting both choices.

**..**

When he was younger, much younger and still a naive little fucker, he once asked his mother, _do you love me?_

The time she spent in silence, thinking over her answer, simply staring at him in consideration, is the longest and most painful two minutes in Akihito's life: it still is, more than fifteen years later. He doesn't believe her when she tells him _no_.

Two years later she dies, closely followed by his father a few months later, and Akihito gets shipped from Kyoto to Osaka, where his aunt lives and has agreed to take care of him until he gets of age and can finally get his hands on his inheritance; maybe take care of himself, maybe spend it all be a vagabond. No one knew then.

Akihito, a lot less naive when he gets there, tells her that his mother hates him. The answer he gets makes him cry for the first time since he was called to the school principal's office, only to be told that his mother had gotten into a car accident.

**..**

It's that very same answer that haunts Akihito now, watching Sei play on his own on the floor where he's been deposited, waiting his turn at his next examination. He stares at the Lego brick in his hand like it holds the answers to life, and maybe it does for a three-year-old— _will this fit that other brick? Will it break if I jam it hard enough?_ —and Akihito wishes he can find the answer to his dilemma in a piece of plastic, too, because while he doesn't doubt that he's slowly falling in love with Sei, he doesn't think he can do so to the extent that his mother had done for _him_.

**..**

“She doesn't, Akihito. She doesn't hate you. In fact, she loves you so much. She hates the fact that you came so early, resents the fact that life brought you to her in a time where she couldn't possibly fully love and support you like she would have wanted. She hates that life had to be hard on you—that you couldn't have all the toys you wanted, that you couldn't spend all the time with either her or your father—but she never hated you. She spent her whole life dreaming of you, of giving you everything you might possibly want. She gave up dreams of glamour to live the dream of a mother with the most wonderous child. She always dreamed of _you_ , Akihito.”

**..--..**

It takes a couple of minutes for what he's seeing to actually sink into his mind. At first he thinks nothing of it—he's been in school and has stared down statistical spreadsheets long enough not to panic at every little thing—but then something _else_ catches his attention and he stares at it for a little longer. He scrolls up to the page before that, switches windows to the other spreadsheets he's been typing up, collecting, and correlating, before going back to the first spreadsheet and squinting.

When it finally clicks, all he can say is, “Whoa, shit.” He's too shocked to check his vocabulary; too excited to tone down his voice

A slap, hard enough that it gets the attention of three adults—who turn away almost immediately, thank god they hadn't heard him curse—causes him to jump almost out of his skin, the stinging sensation enough to bring him back to earth. “ _Language,_ ” his friend – classmate – scholarship competitor hisses. “Why are you cussing, anyway?”

He turns towards her, this time making sure his volume is low enough that even their fellow interns, splayed on the floor behind them, can't hear his voice. “Remember that one kid we were trying to figure out?” he asks. He clicks at something on the laptop, bringing up a spreadsheet from another country. “You know, one of the many who are—uh, utter mysteries?”

She nods slowly, eyes scanning his monitor and leaning closer to him. She has completely forgotten to act as if she was doing something with her own unit, now blatantly staring at his, and ignoring her own growing pile of responsibilities. The last one who drops off a completed health card stops by them, ignoring _his_ own responsibility of delivering the child to their parent.

“What's with it?” she asks him, her voice heavy with confusion and her tone telling him that if she doesn't find this worth her shirking off responsibilities, he has hell to pay. He doesn't doubt it, so he simply grins at him and scrolls down. His grin broadens as her eyes grow wider, because she has always been much smarter and faster than him at noticing these things. “Are you telling me—”

He looks up at their companion, who is also now leaning across her computer table to frown at his monitor. He scrolls back up, and then scrolls down again. He jumps back before staring at him. “Wait—“

“How's this batch?” he asks, interrupting both of them because _really_ , _yes_ , that's what he's saying. His grin is almost splitting his face now.

The other boy shrugs, watching his face closely. “Not much different, to be honest. No weird results, everything normal, except—”

“Oral skills?” she finishes.

“Oral skills. Kid can't talk. Like, at all. No babbling, no sounds. Just random grunts. Tried to read to him, he doesn't react at all except to stare. Kinda creepy, actually.”

Laughter, from all of them. Except this one is on edge. “Have you tried—”

“I'm about to, but there are over—”

“Try just one of the seven, maybe it'll work?”

He nods, and then moves away. He finally grabs a kid who's trying to crawl away from him, swinging her around and making airplane noises as they approach a woman who's standing at the entrance to the parents' area. He watches for a few more seconds before he concentrates on his computer again, switching back and fourth among sheets named _Germany – Russia – US – Japan_ before finally deciding he's done with it. He saves the sheets into his hard drive, takes it off the computer, and kicks the intern behind him in the shin.

“Let's change places, my eyes are hurting,” he says. She just shrugs and stands up, stretching before handing him a card.

“Let's finish this last one and then we'll switch, okay?”

He nods, and then he searches for another pair of eyes. They're already on him, and they both nod in tacit agreement that _no one talks about this_.

No one talks about it, at least until this overbearing feeling of _something is not right_ overflows and maybe burns them where they all stand. The thought is jarring enough that he jumps to his feet, his chair scrolling away from him and stopping just short of the wall, still facing him. If it were alive, it would probably look at him with betrayal. He blinks. He needs a break if he's imagining facial expressions on inanimate objects. Instead, he turns back to his computer, types in the new information, and then sits on his ass on the floor, awaiting the next child he will be relegated to check up on.

He's hoping it proves enough distraction from his slowly spiraling thoughts.

 _Even a hurricane starts with the slow spinning of hot and cold air,_ he remembers from science class. He rubs his eyes with his fists, hoping to maybe alleviate the incoming headache, but he just can't. Instead he breathes in, remembering the calming exercises he had learned from countless psych classes. _Never thought I'd see the day,_ he thinks to himself.

**..**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA OOOOOOOH SUCH MYSTERIOUS, VERY NAMELESS 
> 
> I WOULD JUST LIKE TO ADMIT, FOR THE SAKE OF FULL DISCLOSURE, THAT I LEGIT STILL HAVE NO NAMES FOR MY INTERNS. PLEASE SEND ME IDEAS I AM DESPERATE???? PLEASE I AM BEGGING
> 
> also on the socialized system:
> 
> my university applies it and TBH IT'S A SCAM. it looks good on paper, but the system they're using to gauge how much you can afford to pay is shit. i hope they can fix it (and soon!!!!!) but, anyway, for those who don't know, this is how it works: the rich who can afford it basically pay for the poor who can't. that's it.
> 
> now, on the neonatal and pediatric developmental tests:
> 
> i think you can actually search these on the internet, but there are several milestones that an infant or toddler must be able to reach at a certain age. this is not to say that all toddlers are the same, but if there is one milestone that hasn't been reached (i.e., babbling/speech at age 1 1/2) it usually means a delay in development (or Global Developmental Delay). It's not bad, and with hard work one can help the child reach their milestone, but it sometimes makes it harder for the child to socialize with their peers, which is frustrating for them and for their parents.
> 
> ok. rant over.
> 
> (leave me love)

**Author's Note:**

> [ aight pls come talk to me about anything i'm lonely ](http://www.ehre-wahrheit.tumblr.com)


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